But this luck cannot last. I know this. Mrs. Milne will not want a baby in the hotel, and I have been dishonest about that from the beginning. She summons me to her office one afternoon in March.
“Mrs. Ryan,” she calls me, still believing I am a widow. “There is a matter we must discuss.”
I know it in that moment. She sees me. She will push me out the door into the melting streets.
“When is the baby coming?”
My face is on fire. “Mrs. Milne, I—”
Her lips purse. “You are embarrassed. I understand. You should have told me the truth, but I know why you did not. Would I have given you the opportunity to work here if I’d known your condition? I am forced to admit that you were correct not to tell me, because I certainly would not have hired you. And that would have been my mistake, for you are a conscientious worker and have improved my hotel tenfold.” She reaches across the desk and places her fingers on my forearm. “I have spoken with Mr. Milne about the matter, and we have agreed that you and the baby may stay. If the child is unruly and disturbs the guests, we will reconsider the arrangement, of course.”
“Of course,” I breathe. “Oh, Mrs. Milne, you’ve put the heart back in me. The worry’s been gnawing at my guts, it has. I cannot put off making big decisions any longer.”
“It will be soon, then?”
I lay my hand on my belly. ’Tis hard as a giant nut. At night I lie awake with my hand just there, feeling the little one move. I’ll miss this feeling, I think.
“I believe it will be in just a few weeks, ma’am.”
One rainy day only two weeks later, she asks me to go out and pick up some sheets she has ordered. I pull my old grey scarf over my face and step outside, into a right loud thunderstorm. I have only walked two blocks before a terrible spasm grips my stomach, and I stagger sideways to lean against a shop’s brick wall. When it comes again, my knees let go. I crash onto them and curl up under the rain, gasping. I taste blood, but ’tis only I bit my tongue when I fell.
“Miss? Are you all right?”
A woman appears above me, umbrella held overhead. She has thick greycurls and thick glasses, and I try to answer, but pain steals my words. She scowls.
“Are you sick? Get ahold of yourself and go inside.” Then she sees how I am grabbing my stomach. “Where is your husband?”
I shake my head, helpless. She’s sharp, I can see, and she leaps to the correct conclusion. Her lips tighten with judgement, then she marches on, mind made up that I’m of the divil himself, not someone to help. I blink at her receding figure, hurting in so many ways.
Thank God, another woman runs out from the shop and squats beside me. “Are you all right? Oh! Is the baby coming? Can you stand? Please come in, out of the rain.” I lean heavily on her, surprising myself for taking advantage of a stranger, but faith, I’d not manage without her. When we are inside, she runs and grabs a blanket for me. “Aren’t you the girl from the Queen’s Hotel?”
I nod, and she sends a shop assistant running. Minutes later, Mrs. Milne appears. She thanks the woman, gathers me up, and somehow manages to get me back to the hotel. Another woman arrives before long, and Mrs. Milne leaves me in her care. She’s a midwife, she tells me, setting up a chair at the foot of my bed. I say nothing as she lifts the blanket and examines me, but I watch her face. When she smiles, I breathe again.
Granny told me over and over about the women in my past who suffered in childbirth on theFortitude. She liked to harp on the pain and the hardships, going on until I couldn’t bear it another minute. Now I know she was right. Faith, Granny was always right, in her own way. I now understand the looks of pity I’ve gotten from women passing by, spying the swollen belly beneath my coat. They knew what was coming: things were about to get much harder for me. Did the women on theFortitudefeel the same, I wonder, as they waited for the storm to break?
For hours on end, the midwife rubs my stomach, my back, and my shoulders, encouraging me, distracting me, comforting me. At last, I feel an urgency, and the midwife sits up straight, hands at the ready.
“Almost there, dear. Almost done.” She peeks under the blanket. “Yes, that’s good, Mrs. Ryan. I can see the baby’s head.”
I scream when the pain suddenly becomes sharp as fire, and I could swear I’m about to die. But I’m not dying, she reminds me. I’m giving life. I’m living through the greatest miracle of all. I feel Damien’s hand squeezing mine, helping me through it, and in the next moment, I hear the tiny miracle screaming through newborn lungs.
The midwife is smiling as she wraps the baby in a towel, then lays the bundle in my arms. “Congratulations, Mrs. Ryan. It’s a girl, and she is perfect.”
chapterTHIRTY-EIGHT
Unlike my baby, I am far from perfect. Infection sets in after dear Mary is born, and for two weeks I fight to stay alive. I must. ’Tisn’t just me anymore. I have a tiny, helpless daughter who needs me. At last I recover, but I am weak as water. Carrying her around for a short time wears me thin. I begin to wonder if I will ever be strong enough to be the mother she deserves.
As soon as I am able, I bundle Mary up and go to see Father Charles. Granny is with me, nodding with pride as I present her great-granddaughter for baptism. Mary is three weeks old, bundled up snug with a perfect whorl of Damien’s pale orange hair. She is so tiny, and when Father Charles uses his thumb to make the sign of the cross on her brow, she holds up her hand as if she’s saying hello. Father Charles pauses, touched by the moment, and gives her his little finger to clutch. She grabs onto it, wide-eyed, and I giggle through my tears. If only she could squeeze Damien’s finger like that.
Mary is the best of babies. I have lined a box with towels and a blanket, and she fits into it neat as you please. When I wake, I hold her to my body and pour all my love into her. When she suckles, I tell her stories and singher songs Granny used to sing to me. She opens her eyes, always watching, looking as if she already knows every word.
Once I am strong enough, Mrs. Milne lets me keep Mary with me in the reception area. She knows I am worn to the bone, but my energy comes from the baby. Oh, that child, with her button nose and beautiful big eyes, with tiny pink lips that root and reach for me when I bring her to my breast. She is my world, and I thank both Damien and God every day for giving her to me.
“Mo stórín beag,” I whisper to her. My little treasure.
“Excuse me.”
“Oh, beg pardon,” I say, raising my eyes to greet the guest who has just entered. He’s tall and broad, wearing a long black coat and matching fedora. “I was distracted.”
